Cast Down
by Syvamiete
Summary: Looking after a punch of Fallen Angels certainly wasn't part of a hunter's job description.
1. Prolog

**AN:** I finally (after siting a month on this prolog) start to post this story as a celebration of the starting of season 9. This belongs to the same verse as my other story _In the Beginning_, but they can be read completely separately. This is my vision of what happens after _Sacrifice_.

* * *

The first thing he notices is the darkness. Remnants of sleep and beginning of a headache make his brains hazy as his mind tries to wrap around the new experience. Normally such petty things as little dusk wouldn't disturb him, but now he has to strain his vision even to see his own hand. He shifts in the bed and pulls the sheets tighter around him.

Then the realization strikes him and he scrambles anything but gracefully on the floor. Flashing pain in his forehead makes him hiss, but he still tries to wrack his brain for an explanation for how he had ended up in a foreign bed. As far as he could remember he hadn't been anywhere near one, foreign nor familiar.

Eventually his latest memory finally hits him and makes him to bend over, the memory of the pain still so fresh and vivid. He tries to calm down, but his heart keeps stubbornly beating against his ribs and the pain inside his skull keeps getting more and more agonizing.

He freezes. A tendril of horror starts to creep along his spine. Angels doesn't need a pulse. He takes a deep breath and straightens wincing a little. He even closes his eyes although it makes little difference. After a while, he cracks them open. The room is still dark, only dim glow gets past the curtains. This time he adds a snap of fingers. Still nothing. "Let there be light," he commands and snaps again. Still dark. He tries again and again, but nothing chances. "Oh, come on!" Frustration makes him wave his hand too far and he hits it to something, maybe a lamp, causing it to crash on the floor. Fuck, now both his head _and_ hand are hurting.

He forces himself to calm down. He raises his gaze to the dark ceiling and starts over again. Breath, eyes, snap.

* * *

The first and only question is 'why'. What on Earth could be the point of this?

He fumbles along the dark hallway trying to find his way out of the damn house. It is clear that nobody has lived in this hellhole for years: thick suffocating clouds of dust rise from the carpet with every step and he has stumbled on countless beer bottles and spray cans. He even found remains of a fire in one of the bedrooms.

He opens a door to his left and swears. It is another damn bedroom. What has he done to deserve this? Hadn't all the previous crap been enough?

He is already turning to try the door across the hall when he suddenly freezes. There is something familiar in this room. He could swear he had been here before. Now that he thinks about it, the nursery and in fact the whole place seems familiar even though he can't be sure because of the damn darkness.

All of a sudden, he realizes it. The supposed point of this whole crap. "You think this is funny?" he yells at the ceiling.

* * *

He watches as the final flaming lights dim on the sky. He doesn't mind the pain, he's deserved it. It's a suitable reminder of his own stupidity, of how he hand blindly chasing his redemption doomed not only himself, but all his siblings.

It feels like something bitter has got stuck into his throat. He blinks staring at the dark sky behind the black treetops. "Please," he whispers, "just these ones."

Of course, nothing happens, but he still has to blink harder as he casts his eyes to the ground.

* * *

An orange light of street lamps paints everything in the same dull shades. She just lies still and watches the moving the lights of a few passing cars on the ceiling and walls.

The mattress smells like mole and dampness seeps through her clothes. Clearly her previous life hadn't suck enough.

* * *

It is so quiet. All he can hear is his own breathing and the wind that's blowing through the broken windows. Chills run down his spine as he tries to pull the jacket tighter around himself.

It is a strange sensation. During his entire life he had never been alone, not in the true sense of the word. Wherever he went, he could sense his siblings' graces around him and at one time even his Father's presence. But now, he can't feel anything.

Well, that isn't entirely true: he feels many things right now, but none of them has anything to do with being an angel. Is this really what being a human feels like? So… lonely?

He pushes himself from the floor brushing his jeans and weaves his way through the broken furniture that is lying around to the front door. He sits down on the decaying porch and watches the slowly rising sun, waiting a sign of what to do.


	2. Chapter 1: The Message

"Does that thing even work anymore?"

"Of course, Sammy. Like a dream."

Sam threw a suspicious glance at the old walkie-talkie/scanner, but said nothing. He watched as Dean strode among the crop. The field was finally quieted, all the curious locals gone back home.

"Dean," he called. His brother stopped in the middle of depressed lines crossing in the grain. "Found anything?"

"Not yet, but that doesn't mean anything. Someone doesn't just accidently imprint a huge devil's trap into the field."

"It wouldn't work," Sam noted. "It's incomplete."

"Well, someone still put a hell of a lot effort to make it. If not to catch demons, then to mark something." Dean turned to continue to circle among the crop.

"It's getting dark. We can come back tomorrow." Dean looked back at him and then at the field. Sam knew all too well what he was thinking. It was two days since the angels had Fallen. And the whole map at the Bat Cave had sprung to life. When Cas hadn't answered their prayers, not even Dean's, they had started to seriously get worried. They had reluctantly left Kevin to look after the Bat Cave and chained Crowley in cause Cas would appear there and took the Impala. They had been on the road ever since, trying to find anyone who would know what the hell was going on. The crop circles had been their best lead so far. It was like flashing neon sign designed to attract hunters. Like a message.

"I don't think he's here," Sam said softly as his brother kept staring into the horizon. Dean didn't move for a moment, but turned then without a word and marched at the Impala they have parked at the edge of the forest.

The drive back to the motel was exceptionally sluggish. Neither of them said anything and Dean didn't even turn the music on. They were still quiet as Sam opened the door and switched the lights on.

"It's nice to see the Apocalypse didn't get too rough on you," a voice from other side of room said.

Reflexes kicked in, but for the stranger's luck Dean got a hold of himself before he emptied his gun to their visitor.

"You two have some serious explaining to do," the Trickster said from the armchair.

A stupefied silence fell into the room. He and Dean could only stare the annoyed looking but obviously alive archangel. Finally, Sam got his voice back. "You died. Lucifer killed you."

"Oh, yeah, he did. I was actually stone dead for several years. Until last Wednesday, when I woke up in a grabby roadside motel forty kilometers from here without a drop of Grace. So, do you two muttonheads have something to confess?"

"What, you think we have something to do with it?" Dean challenged.

"Yes, I actually do. And you know why? Because every time the shit hits the fan, you two nimrods are behind it, one way or another. And could you please lower the gun before you accidently shoot someone. That thing could kill me."

"Wait," Sam interrupted, getting caught on a detail of what Gabriel had said. "So you don't have any Grace?"

"Try to listen, Sammy Boy. As I already told, someone brought me back but didn't bother to reconstruct my Grace. So now I'm just as human as either of you," he spread his hands.

"We need to check that," Dean said moving closer his duffel on the table without lowering his gun.

"And how you're gonna do that? Throw some holy fire at me?"

"Thank your luck we don't have any at hand, so we have to resort to some more basic methods." He tossed a flask of holy water and a silver knife at the angel.

"Happy?" Gabriel asked cynically pressing the cut in his palm to cease the bleeding.

"So you don't have any idea how you were brought back?" Sam asked handing him a tissue.

"No. Last thing I remember is Lucifer killing me and the next thing I know, I wake up in a crappy motel bed in the middle of nowhere."

"When did you say it happened?"

"Last Wednesday. What about it? So you _did_ do something," the angle looked Dean challengingly.

Sam glanced at Dean. "_We_ didn't do anything that would result this, but last Wednesday-Thursday night something made hundreds of angels to fall."

Gabriel's attention snapped back to him.

"That night angels fell all around the world, but we don't know what caused it."

"Couldn't you ask Dean's boyfriend about it? Or did you managed to get Castiel killed too?"

Dean did his best to ignore the last comment. "We don't know where he is."

"Well, there should be some other angels willing to help you. There're thousands of us after all. And I think that if you would ask really nicely, you may be able to lure even Michael himself to answer to you."

Brothers changed looks again. "Some things have changed since Apocalypse," Sam said tentatively. He looked at Dean for support, but since his brother was busy pretending to search something from the duffel, he sighed and continued. "After you… after you died, we got the Rings as you had told and… and I said yes to Lucifer."

Gabriel raised a brow but didn't interrupt.

"The plan was that when he would be inside me, I would jump into the Cage. But, well, it took some time for me to gain control and when I did, Michael was there and tried to stop me, so I kind of ended up dragging him down there too."

Gabriel still didn't say anything, only looked him blankly.

"After that, Cas got me out of the Cage, mostly, and there was a civil war in Heaven, between Cas and Raphael, who wanted to restart the Apocalypse. Well, at far as I know, it was quite bloody and didn't end until Cas opened the door to Purgatory and took souls into his use, but that didn't end so well and he… he ended up to kill Raphael and accidently release Leviathans. And then there were the tablets containing the Word of God and we, we were closing the gates Hell and Cas had started the Trials to close the Heaven too. Before Tuesday." He stopped and waited Gabriel's reaction. Nothing he had just told could really count as happy news.

After a while, the angel drew a deep breath. "If you need me, I'll be outside." He walked past them closing the door softly after him.

For a moment, neither of the brothers said anything. "Maybe we should check on him," Sam finally suggested quietly, but Dean didn't say anything, just kept burrowing through his bags. Gabriel had poked a sore spot. "You know, he probably didn't mean it," he tried but got no answer. So, it was up to him.

He found the angel sitting at the steps leaning against a concrete wall. Quietly he sat next to him. "You OK?"

"I just heard that not one but two of my brothers are locked in the Cage. It was planned for one and only Father knows what they have managed to do to each other down there. And my third older brother is dead, as well as who knows how many of my younger siblings, and those who managed to survive are now probably all being cast down. That takes some time to handle," he laughed dryly and ran a hand through his hair.

More closely looked the angel seemed quite ragged and tired. "Do you need anything? You're free to use our shower or borrow my bed. You look like you could need it."

Gabriel pocked the flaky paint on the steps. "That's what follows when you get turned into human without money or anything. It took me a day of playing in the field make that crop circle and then all I could do was to wait some hunters to show up. For my luck, it was you two."

"How could you recognize a hunter?"

"I just chose the crappiest motel on 15 miles radius and went to ask if some official looking guys asking weird questions had booked in."

This earned a small laugh from Sam. "But seriously, you look like you could use some shut-eye."

"I hope that I could." Sam gave him a questioning look "Imagine that you have never slept in your life and then someone suddenly comes and tells you to fall asleep. It can be surprisingly difficult. And you look like you would need that bed at least as badly as I do."

"Trying to close the gates of Hell is just as hard as it sounds." Gabriel hummed agreeing.

"But is that offer for a shower still standing?"


End file.
